...but no wiser. Maybe a bit wiser -wise enough to know I'm not that wise, anyway.

Yesterday, I pivoted my thirties. 35 years old. Mid way through the three score and ten. Horribly grown-up sounding - for someone quite obviously not that grown up: no mortgage, no job, no kids, no lasting legacy...

Birthdays are funny. Peculiar, more than laughable, obviously. I woke up oddly contemplative (and in hideous post-dental surgery pain...) at three in the morning. Every birthday since my mum died it has felt as though I've been a phone call and a card short. At three am I felt as though I needed to phone home. I didn't of course. That would have been entirely redundant, but the ache was there. Iwiped my eyes, returned to bed and woke again at a more sensible time, the pain -in both senses- having passed.

I spent my day in the best company I could want -gloriously no pressure on me to do or be anything but myself - and so sofa-snoozing and the watching of DVDs, along with the preparation and consumption of toad in the hole, onion gravy and garlic mash, suited me well. It probably sounds dull as a Barrett flat to most, but there is something to be said for quiet, understated contentment.

I am starting out on my 36th year with something of a purpose: I will be looking into the possibility of a PhD; I will refresh my teaching career, maybe take it more seriously; I will take my health more seriously (and myself far less seriously) and I will love my friends, my family and those closest to my heart like the world is ending - I've seen the news, you know: it very well might be ending, it really jolly bloody very well might...